The sexual selection of creativity: A nomological approach

Abstract

Cultural innovations, such as tools and other technical articles useful for survival, imply that creativity is an outcome of evolution. However, the existence of purely ornamental items obfuscates the functional value of creativity. What is the functional or adaptive value of aesthetic and intellectual ornaments? Recent evidence shows a connection between ornamental creativity, an individual's attractiveness, and their reproductive success. However, this association is not sufficient for establishing that creativity in humans evolved by sexual selection. In this critical review, we synthesize findings from many disciplines about the mechanisms, ontogeny, phylogeny, and the function of creativity in sexual selection. Existing research indicates that creativity has the characteristics expected of a trait evolved by sexual selection: genetic basis, sexual dimorphism, wider variety in males, influence of sex hormones, dysfunctional expressions, an advantage in mating in humans and other animals, and psychological modules adapted to mating contexts. Future studies should investigate mixed findings in the existing literature, such as creativity not being found particularly attractive in a non-WEIRD society. Moreover, we identified remaining knowledge gaps and recommend that further research should be undertaken in the following areas: sexual and reproductive correlates of creativity in non-WEIRD societies, relationship between androgens, development, and creative expression, as well as the impact of ornamental, technical and everyday creativity on attractiveness. Evolutionary research should analyze whether being an evolved signal of genetic quality is the only way in which creativity becomes sexually selected and therefore passed on from generation to generation. This review has gone a long way toward integrating and enhancing our understanding of ornamental creativity as a possible sexual selected psychological trait.

Keywords: WEIRD; creativity; intelligence; mating; ornament; proximate; sexual selection; ultimate.

Figure 1

This scheme synthesizes the main variables associated with creativity and the possible relationships between them. A schematic illustration of a possible psychological structure of creativity. People who are more open to new experiences are more curious, flexible, and original, i.e., more creative and intelligent. Creativity involves divergent and convergent thinking, two characteristics associated with intelligence. Each type of creativity would operate according to its psychological mechanisms that are activated in the face of specific contexts and stimuli. These contexts and stimuli can have a reproductive nature, such as situations related to mate attraction or the visualization of a physically attractive partner. According to Feist (2001), ornamental creativity would have evolved by sexual selection because it was more conspicuous (e.g., making artistic pieces), just like the peacock’s plumage (Møller and Petrie, 2002, but also Askew, 2014 and Thavarajah et al., 2016), while technical creativity would have evolved by viability selection because it was more beneficial for survival (i.e., making tools). We also propose that reproductive motivations can mobilize everyday creativity; after all, people use their creativity and aesthetic sensitivity daily to beautify themselves (e.g., using makeup and clothes that enhance the most attractive features of the face and body, respectively; Stephen and Luoto, 2021; Varella et al., 2017; Valentova et al., 2022). Importantly, sexual selection would have shaped the psychological propensities to perform these manifestations and to enjoy them.

Figure 2

Consequences of stress on people with schizotypal and autistic traits. Creative people are moderately schizotypal. In other words, schizotypal people are often imaginative, associating ideas in unusual ways. People with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder also have these characteristics, sometimes manifesting them in a “dysfunctional way,” e.g., in a paranoid way, but not in an artistic way. That “dysfunctional manifestation” of creativity can occur because of stressors that disrupt normal nervous system development. Thus, individuals with the same genetic propensities for high creativity may manifest it in the form of a disorder or the neurotypical form, depending on how much the stressors have affected ontogeny. This figure shows three examples of populations, each subjected to different levels of environmental stress. The symbol with “!” means high levels of stressors, while the symbol “ok” means tolerable levels of stressors, that is, those that do not significantly impair neural development.